Mastering The Phone Interview

Here’s a phone interview tip worth considering: smile. A smile is a magic thing, and in addition to being seen in person it can be felt from a distance. When doing a phone interview, don’t think that because the person on the other end of the phone can’t see you that smiling and other positive body gestures are not important. The best interview tip that anyone was ever given was to smile and make positive gestures. In fact, many people talk with their hands. If you do, consider a telephone head set to free your hands up.

Another tip that will be worth its weight in gold is to have a good quality telephone. It may seem silly to even mention it, but the better quality phone you use, the better your voice will sound. Years ago everyone rented his or her telephones from the local utility phone company. These days people own their own phones, and while many people use good quality phones, many use the ten and fifteen-dollar phones they’ve found in the local dollar store or discount mart. Those phones are fine for talking to your spouse perhaps, but for business use make a good business impression, and use a good phone. Add this tip to the mix as well: use a land line with a cord, and not a cell phone or cordless phone. Dead batteries, crackling sounds, bad cell sites, and weather interference can make you sound bad at the other end, and you may not even know it. When doing your phone interview you want to be clear and make a good impression. Take this tip to heart and use a good quality land line.

Take a tip from a headhunter; Do your homework on the company before your phone interview. Do a search on the Internet using Yahoo, Google, MSN, Dogpile or any of the major search engines. Look them up in an online database like Dun and Bradstreet or Info USA. If you don’t have easy access to these online tools, go to your local library and tell the reference librarian what you are doing. He or she will be glad to provide you with information sources that will help you seem knowledgeable when having your phone interview.

The last tip to keep in mind is to be yourself, and be comfortable. One of the best ways to be yourself, and maintain comfort during your phone interview is to practice the interview. Ask a friend to play the part of the boss. Call your friend on the phone and go through a mock interview, answering all of the questions that you think the interviewer is likely to ask. Mock trials help lawyers, and rehearsals help musicians. It only makes sense that a practice interview will help an interviewer. While it may seem silly, this is a phone interview tip you should take to heart.

Succession Planning and Executive Career Coaching Strategies That Work.

Organizations today are facing several challenges and talent management is one of the greatest. According to a poll conducted by OI Partners, Inc., the number one challenge facing the HR profession is leadership development and succession planning. Attracting, developing, and retainingquality talent is more costly and has a greater impact on the bottom-line than ever before. Retiring baby-boomers, the expectations of Gen X and Gen Y employees, and the new definition of “long-term” employment add up to a drastic shift in the way organizations are managing their talent.

One effective way to overcome these challenges is to implement a succession planning initiative. This proactive approach to ensuring future leadership talent offers many benefits. Studies have shown that organizations with succession planning programs have a higher retention rate of human capital and a reduction in recruitment and compensation costs.

Succession planning has to be more than matching employees with forecasted vacancies. Consideration must be made for the future direction of the organization as well as the direction of the employees intended career path. This ensures that the employee is engaged in the process, committed to the organization, and has a vested interest in the company’s success.

Obstacles to Implementing a Succession Plan

While there are numerous benefits to succession planning, there are also challenges such as limited resources and expertise within the company. Without the assistance of external consultants and coaches, implementing a succession planning initiative can drain an organization’s resources. The most effective programs capitalize on the talent available throughout the company during the implementation phase, however, companies often lack the resources needed for ongoing management. In addition, utilizing external resources provides expertise in succession planning and offers an objective perspective.

Coaching as a Resource

Executive Career Coaching can provide assistance with career management and employee development at the individual level. Using individual coaching and assessments, the coach will guide the employees through the selection of the career path within the organization that best matches their interests and abilities. Once a career path has been chosen, the coach will help the employee prepare for their next promotion.

The career coach can administer assessments such as the DISC, PVQ, and the Enneagram to help the employee gain clarity in the areas of motivators, interests, values and strengths. The feedback obtained from the assessments is essential in creating a career management plan. During the coaching engagement, employees will compare this information along with their experience and education to key leadership positions and determine the strongest fit. This process ensures that employees are matched with the correct positions, reducing the possibility of employee disengagement and turnover at the executive level.

In addition to career pathing, an executive career coach will assist in the creation of development plans. The steps outlined in the development plan will be based on the information gathered during a gap analysis. Comparing the employee’s current level to the experience, skills, and education needed for the next promotion will give the coach and executive a clear picture of where to focus their coaching sessions. Execution of the development plan during the coaching engagement results in promotion readiness.

Benefits of Succession Planning

Identifying and developing strong leaders for future roles is critical to the ongoing success of an organization. Without an effective succession planning program in place, companies will face greater challenges than those incurred during the implementation of a program, including:

• Waging the “War on Talent”

• Fewer leaders prepared to take on new roles

• Obstacles to achieving strategic goals

Attracting and retaining high-potential employees is costly. However, it is not as costly as the turnover of high-potential employees. Studies have shown that superior performers are 50% to 100% more effective than the average performer.

Using these statistics, if an average performer generates $250,000 in new business each year; a superior performer will generate between $375,000 and $500,000 in new business. By developing and promoting the superior performer to a leadership role, they have the potential to increase the productivity of the team. As an example, this leader can increase the revenues of a team generating $2.5M to $5M.

Given the possibility of increased profits, meeting the employee’s desire for career growth is both a financial and strategic advantage.

Because growth and development are benefits highly sought after in a potential employer, organizations with highly publicized succession planning initiatives and career management programs become “employers of choice”, thereby making it easier to attract top talent and reduce turnover.

Most employers are unaware of how much turnover costs them each year or how to reduce this number. Assuming a fifteen percent turnover rate and turnover costs of twenty-five percent of an employee’s annual compensation, an organization with one thousand employees and an average compensation of $50,000 will incur $1,875,000 in costs each year. Given that half of all turnover is avoidable, this organization could save $937,500 each year by investing in employee retention strategies.

The Added Benefits of Using Career Coaching as a Resource for Succession Planning Programs

Utilizing a Career Coach in your succession plan initiative allows leaders and Human Resources to focus on effectively managing and evaluating the program. An external career coach provides a confidential environment where the employees are free to discuss the challenges and opportunities they face in their careers and establish plans to overcome them.

One of the greatest benefits the coach offers is preparing the organization’s existing talent for future leadership roles. They take the organization’s human capital to the next level through the use of assessments, powerful questions, and individual development plans. Promoting from within provides benefits, such as:

• Reduced recruitment costs. The need for external recruiting is lessened for executive level position, which reduces headhunter fees (between 25% and 33% of the candidate’s total compensation) Ex. An executive placed by a headhunter with an annual compensation package of $200,000 would incur fees between $50,000 and $66,666.

• Reduction of executive compensation. According to Towers Perrin, external candidates are generally paid 20% to 30% more than internals that are promoted because externals needs a financial reason to make a career change.

• Promoting internal candidates offers the employer the benefit of knowing their track record, strengths, and their development needs. External candidates, unless personally known, only reveal as much or as little information as they deem appropriate, leaving the organization to rely on the interview process, assessments, and references to complete the picture.

Thriving succession planning initiatives balance the strategic direction of the organization with the career aspirations of its high potential employees. They also rely on external consultants and coaches to provide expertise, an objective perspective and additional resources.

Executives who engage in coaching during the succession program have a clear direction of where they are going and how they are going to get there. In contrast, executives that are not offered coaching are not as well prepared to map out their career path or develop the skills they need for future promotions. Executive career coaching facilitates the process of creating successful careers and developing future leaders.

Hiring the Best; Interview strategies that work.

You can’t afford to hire someone who can’t do the job, do it with minimal direction, or do it quickly.  Fortunately, there are techniques that you can use to ensure that the candidate you select can do the job.  We will examine four techniques here — demonstrations, simulations, problem solving, and testing — and introduce a powerful interviewing technique — High Performance Interviewing — that we will cover in more detail in the next issue of Performance News.

Demonstrations

Ideally, the best way to see if a candidate is able to do the job is to have them actually do the job.  To have them, in other words, demonstrate their ability to do the work.  Sales representatives can sell something; software engineers can code something; machine operators can operate a machine; secretaries can answer phones or type a memo; etc.

Simulation

Sometimes demonstrations are not possible or appropriate.  The next best thing to a demonstration is a simulation.  A simulation is like a demonstration except that the situation is not real.  In sales or customer service, for example, you can role play an angry customer and have the candidate respond to your anger.  Another example of a simulation is having a telesales representative call you (the “customer”) to sell you something.  Or, if you’re interviewing for a training position, you could have the candidate teach you something.

Problem Solving

Sometimes demonstrations and simulations are not feasible.  Then problem solving might provide you with confidence in the person’s ability.  Problem solving is a technique many interviewers use to see how adept the candidate is in addressing real or hypothetical problems and challenges.  It is one step removed from simulation because in problem solving the candidate describes what s/he would do rather than simulating what s/he would do.  A cautionary note: problem solving by itself may only indicate what a person SAYS s/he will do in a given situation, not how they actually will or did behave.  Still, problem solving is a good way to check a critical skill.

Test

Tests are also sometimes helpful as part of the hiring process.  Psychological tests provide a way for some companies to identify key characteristics in an individual.  Other ways of testing include asking specific knowledge questions such as “What commands might you use to initiate a subroutine?” or “What are the advantages and disadvantages of common network protocols?”

Interview

However, sometimes demonstrations, simulations, problem solving, or testing might not be feasible; at the very least they -- by themselves -- are inadequate.  Interviewing is required. Effective interviewing requires that you have sharp probing and listening skills to get the candidate to describe or explain relevant experiences from which you can draw highly predictive information.  We call this type of interviewing High Performance Interviewing.

Can we maximize the traditional method of hiring candidates — the interview — to hire more effectively?  The answer is, “YES!”

Many interviews result in a mutual exchange of meaningless information and a “gut feeling.”  The process we call High Performance Interviewing (HPI) helps you gather meaningful, predictive information and substantiates your “gut feeling.”

HPI is based on the premise that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.  HPI is designed to extract highly predictive, accurate target data from candidates.  Target data is:

• Behavioral: The data must be about what the candidate did, said, thought, or felt.  We do not consider what the person “was responsible for” as target data since it doesn’t tell what the person actually did.  The data must be about the candidate.  We do not consider “we” data target data since we don’t know what the candidate did.

• Volunteered by the candidate: Target data comes from the candidate’s memory, not the interviewer’s suggestions or prompting.

• About a specific past situation: Focused on what actually happened, not on what might have happened, or what generally happens.  Having the candidate state what they would do in specific scenarios may point out problem solving and quick thinking but may not predict what the person actually has done in similar situations.  Only data based on past situations is considered target data.

Step 1: General Opening Statement or Question

Begin gathering target data with general opening questions or statements. The purpose of this step is to get the candidate to talk about what we want them to talk about.  Here are examples of general openings.  (The phrases in parentheses are examples of specific skills I might be looking for in a candidate.):

• “I’m looking for (examples of when you managed multiple priorities).”

• “I’d like to hear more about (your experiences in delegating).”

• “I’d like to find out how (you respond to autonomy and little direction).”

• “Can you think of a time when (you had a difficult deadline to meet)?”

• “Do you recall an instance where (you were aware that another member of the team was not pulling his or her own weight)?”

• “Is there an example of (a challenge you faced in coding a new module)?”

Step 2: Get Deeper

The next step in gathering target data is to get deeper in those areas important to the job.  Questions that help you get deeper include:

• “How did it start?”

• “What were the key points in the situation?”

• “What were the results?”

• “What happened first/then/next?”

• “What did you do/say/feel/think?”

• “How did you prepare/follow-up?”

• “What do you believe was the most important event/decision/activity during that time?”

Here are several guidelines for getting deeper:

• Ask what the candidate did, said, felt, thought.

• Separate the candidate’s actions from others’ actions.

• Ask “who”, “what”, “when”, “where”, and “how”.

What is your role throughout this questioning?  Take notes to help you guide the conversation.  Listen.  Ask for clarity when necessary.  Remember, we cannot assess a candidate’s qualifications if WE do all the talking!

What You Don’t Do

It is important that you as interviewer don’t:

• Ask leading questions:  Leading questions give you exactly what you want to hear.  And they typically result in inaccurate data.

• Accept generalizations:  Generalizations don’t tell you what the candidate did.  Target data must be specific.

• Accept collectivisms: Collectivisms are the use of we, the group, my team, etc.  They don’t tell us what this individual -- the candidate -- did.  Again, target data must be specific.

• Assess the candidate before hearing all:  Prejudging a candidate before the data is heard is a serious mistake.  The brain can easily “find” data to support its prejudgment.  Therefore, stick to the script; write down what you hear as the interviewer.  The time for assessment comes later.

How To Get Back On Track

Because HPI is a dialogue, it is sometimes easy for the candidate to digress.  It is your responsibility as interviewer to pull the candidate’s discussion into more relevant and appropriate direction.  Here are some pithy phrases that will rein in or focus the digresser:

• “If I was there, what would I see?”

• “You said there were meetings.  Could you tell me about one?”

• “Can you give me the details?”

• “Let’s backtrack a bit.”

• “Who do you mean by ‘we’?”

When you’ve gathered an appropriate amount of data for a particular skill, repeat the HPI technique until you are satisfied with the results.  Then close the interview.

5 Steps to a successful interview.

Are you prepared for your next job interview? Do you know the secrets of pulling off a flawless interview and getting the job of your dreams? Use these five easy steps to prepare yourself and leave the best impression possible with the hiring manager.

1.Be Early - The worst thing you can do is show up to an interview late. What does that tell the hiring manager about your commitment level? Why would anyone want to hire a person who doesn’t have the organization skills to show up on time? By showing up early you are demonstrating and showing respect of the company and the hiring manager. You are also giving them the opportunity to take you early, which could give you more face time. Face time is important, the longer you have with the hiring manager the better your chances will be to get the job.

2.Research the Company – Never walk into an interview without knowing anything about the company. Do some research; find out how many facilities they have, who is the CEO, and what recent news has come out about the company. Look at the financials from their website or other investor news. Be prepared to ask some questions about what you have discovered. At the end of every interview that I have conducted, I always ask “Do you have any questions for me?” I am always impressed with people who have done their research and are serious about working for the company.

3.Listen, Don’t Talk – It may seem counter-intuitive, but get the hiring manager to do most of the talking. It is a proven fact, that hiring managers will think the interview go better if they do a lot of talking. So use your research and ask a lot of questions to get the interview talking.

4.Carry Copies of Your Resume – Hiring managers are busy people and many times they do not have a copy of your resume when they enter the room. Even if they do have a copy, a lot of the time, it will be a fax copy from the recruiter. This is the time to hand them your resume on a quality piece of paper. Resume paper is thicker and has a very good feel to it and that is what you want the interviewer to associate with you… a good feel. Later, when the hiring manager is reviewing your resume you will stand a better chance of getting the job or at least the second interview.

5.Follow-Up – After the interview, it is always a good idea to follow-up with the hiring manager is some shape, way, or form. If the interviewer gave you his/her card then make use of it. Call them and ask a few follow-up questions and thank them for taking the time to meet with you. If you didn’t get a card during the interview, then send a polite thank you letter. The goal here is to get the hiring manager to think of you again. And the more he/she thinks of you, in a positive manner, the better your chances are to get the job.